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Fushigi Yuugi

Miaka Yuuki (CV: Kae Araki) and her friend Yui (CV: Yumi Touma) finds a book at the National Library and they start reading it. But suddenly they are sucked into what looks like ancient China. They are found by slave traders, but saved by a random man, Tamahome (CV: Hikaru Midorikawa), passing by. While Miaka is looking to find money to pay for the man’s help, Yui is taken back to their world and the man is gone. Miaka sets out to find him, to find Yui, but it results in her becoming the priestess of Suzaku.

THOUGHTS
God, this was a painful watch. It has such potential but is just plain painful to watch. I wish MikiShin was the biggest issue in this show, but the pacing isn’t working for it and I honestly think the world would had better out with this adaptation. Aside from pacing, the story is falling flat and the jokes that I assume the manga don’t really work in this adaptation. I don’t remember much of the original work, which I read almost everything of many years ago, so I can’t say how true this show is to its original work, but I can’t imagine it being this painful.

I’m not exactly comfortable when stuff includes sex but generally I can just push through due to the interest in the title. However, when I get something that looks like it could go into rapey porn… No, thank you. I can deal with the seemingly random injuries, nudity, horrible pacing, jokes that makes the show ever worse… But this made me drop it after the 16th episode. Upside was that the arc was a zombie arc and I watched it during Halloween season last year.

Not recommended to anyone who don’t want porn-like stuff in their face. I was so traumatized by it suddenly being in my face I had nightmares about it. I’m not kidding. It’s also not really recommended to anyone else, though. It was really painful to watch in general after all.

MAHOU SHOUJO?
Let’s go through my checklist I have so far, based on my early mahou shoujo research:
Female main character? Check.
Special main character, because of her magical power? No, not really. Miaka and Yui are special because they come from a different world than the people in the book, and to the girls the people are characters in a book. Neither girl has any special power, as far as I know, and the god or whatever that is the goal for collecting people will grant wishes, not power specifically. Not having any magical power though the series, also means she fails on my third and fourth point where she uses her powers, and keeps them secret.

In other words, I suggest you don’t see this as a mahou shoujo show, but think of it as a fantasy show. But I’ll give the original work a try later on. I used to own it, but sold it way back during a convention, so I need to get my hands on it again.

Mahou Shoujo Monday is a monthly series of reviews that appear the third Monday every month. All entries in this series are based on claims that a certain title is mahou shoujo. You can comment with suggestions of mahou shoujo titles for me to take on later. I will take on anything I can get my hands on legally. You can also donate for this specific series if you check out the support page linked below.

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